


The Garden Part 1

by Throwthemflowers



Series: The Garden [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Sex, Angst and Romance, Biblical Reinterpretation, David and Jonathan - Freeform, Graphic Depictions of War, Graphic Violence, M/M, Musician Harry Styles, Prince Louis Tomlinson, Reincarnation, Religious Conflict, Royalty, Secret Relationship, Smut, So major character deaths happen save at the end of the third part, Soulmates, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2020-09-23 14:07:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Throwthemflowers/pseuds/Throwthemflowers
Summary: Through many centuries and reincarnations, the same fate always binds Louis and Harry’s souls together… an AU mirroring the parallel stories of David, Jesus, and Adam in the Bible, the three “Christ-like” figures in Biblical history. Harry plays these divine faces, and opposing him is Louis, the complication, the thwarter, the 5th century Jonathan who falls madly in love with his kingly father’s musician, the 1960s Judas whose loyalty to his carpenter best-friend-turned-energy-healer is sealed in a kiss, and in the present day, an Eve, who finds himself shipwrecked on a perfect island with a man known to the world as the twitter handle @sonofgod, a sad and bitter man who has lost all hope. As they grow to love each other, echos of their past lives haunt them, and Louis is faced with the ultimate temptation. A three part story spanning hundreds of years, dripping with sacrilege and doused with angst, dealing with questions of duty and fate and destiny and divinity and holiness, a re-telling of one of the oldest myths known to mankind centered around the bonds of love, a love so powerful that even death cannot touch it.





	The Garden Part 1

_Against divinity one had few options. The Devil knew this, knew it perhaps better than any living being, for he had challenged God once, and lost. But in winning, the Almighty had revealed His only weakness, that of jealousy. All worship was to be His, all devotion mirrored back upon His being. And thus the Devil found his weapon, the only thing strong enough to thwart God Himself, for indeed it was God’s own creation: love. _

_At the dawn of humanity the story began, and would be repeated, fated to continue until one side achieved victory. The books would call the Devil a temptress, a deceiver, but he did exactly one thing in that first of all the gardens: he shared God’s greatest gift. And irony of ironies, once love had rooted itself in the human heart, it proved an incurable flaw. _

_And so they danced, the Creator and the Destroyer, for centuries and millennia, God seeking the love of humanity, the Devil siphoning it away, for humans could be made to love many things, most of all each other, and that was the greatest blasphemy of all. _

_At last God placed his very own Son into a human soul, expecting to finally trap the Devil in a fight for the boy’s loyalty, his worship; but jealousy clouded even God’s omnipotence, and He missed the Devil’s hand, for Lucifer remained but a thief, a thwarter, the gale to every wicker house, the wave to every peaceful shore. God made a great misstep with His Savior, with the soul He’d chosen to redeem humanity unto Himself, for He made the boy human. _

_And the Devil knew the heart of humans._

PART 1

Some sunsets demanded more than visual appreciation; some needed to be breathed in, to be felt like gentle coals on closed eyelids and absorbed like a tonic to the skin. This was one such sunset. Louis stood in its glory atop the south tower, the rough wood chafing at his palms where he clung too tightly. Soon he would have to descend the weathered stairway to his back and re-enter the court, slip back into his personna of prince, of heir, of loyal son and warrior. He didn’t want this. He wanted sunsets, a thousand of them, a million of them, stretching out over countless horizons; he wanted to leave everything behind and focus not on killing, but _living_. 

“Your Highness,” a voice called, interrupting his tranquility, “Your presence is required.” 

Louis inhaled the gold one last time. It tasted old. The sunset would die soon, as would he.

“I know.” He turned, flashing a smile at the servant. The young boy, Theodoric, idolized him, always had done. Soon the child would have to watch his hero die, and Louis didn’t envy him that.

The strums of a harp became audible as he descended, and the soft music stilled the anxious thudding of his heart. The music soothed him, though it was meant to soothe his father; its very presence indicated that earlier the King had been in one of his moods. Louis didn’t envy the poor peasant boy the Church had brought in to stave off the King’s rages, but at least the job no longer fell to him. His back bore the marks of too many failed attempts at reason. 

“There he is! My firstborn! Come, kiss your father’s hand, give your king fealty before the morning comes!” 

Louis couldn’t raise his eyes to the dias. His baldric swung as he walked, and his sword clunked against his thigh as the souls of his shoes crunched along the rush floor, a strange and contradictory rhythm birthed between the two that at once sounded both comical and halting, perhaps beating out the customary dirge of men fated to die. 

“Father,” Louis said, his voice soft, steady, as he pressed his lips to the emerald signet ring on the King’s hand. 

“Tomorrow, we will toast to our _victory_, we shall feast,” the King grabbed the neck of Louis’ tunica and pulled him closer, his chapped, crusted lips grazing against his son’s ear, “And we shall bed maidens until our pricks are wanton no more.” 

A hearty laugh, crazed perhaps, but with still enough sanity to lash Louis’ bones, echoed around the throne room. He pulled away slowly, knowing a swift reaction would stir his father’s ire. 

“Yes, father.” 

Lying came easily to Louis. He had been perfecting the art for years, for his entire life. Never had one of his lies been so markedly untrue, though. Tomorrow the kingdom would be in turmoil, the city pillaged, the castle plundered. Louis’ head would be on a spike, most likely, and his prick would most definitely not be plunging into maiden orifices. Not that it ever had. A little surge of bitterness swept through him at this thought, for he’d never intended to die virginal and alone. He’d always dreamt of lying naked atop fresh bedclothes, newly bathed and perfumed, a warm body pressed to his, belonging to him. Sealed to him. He’d dreamt of sharing kisses and hushed whispers and deep urges, of fixing his starvation, of gorging on the feast of lust he’d been denying himself ever since he’d first seen a warrior striped of his linen bracco, glistening and naked and hard with the afterglow of battle, the thrill of victory. 

Another set of footfalls broke upon the rushes, and soon an arm linked with his.

“You should eat, Louis. Keep your strength up for the morning.” 

Louis welcomed his sister’s warm touch. He laid his hand over hers and squeezed her fingers. Charlotte likewise knew that this would be his last supper. 

“Duck, pheasant, the best wine.” Charlotte tugged him to her, away from the King, towards the mead hall. “Excuse us, Father.” 

“Stuff him well, girl, but not _too_ well, can’t have a bloated goat for a champion!” 

More laughter chased them from the throne room, but Louis didn’t let go his sister’s hand. Vaguely he registered the sound of silence; the harp music had faded away. 

“Don’t.” 

Louis swallowed, tears pushing on his eyes. “You know I must.”

“Leave, run away, abandon us.” Charlotte’s nails dug into his sagum, interrupting its draping cascade from his shoulder to the floor. “Please.” 

“Abandon you? To Alaric and his army?” Louis fixed a stray lock that had dislodged from Charlotte’s two flaxen braids. “This way you have a chance. Surrender is better than destruction.” 

“They will still destroy. They’ll kill father, you know they will.” 

“They won’t kill you, or the girls.” 

“They’ll make me marry Ardo.” 

“But you will be _alive_.” Louis drew Charlotte to his chest and held her tightly, breathed in the perfumes of her hair, the starch of her lace clavus, the distinct scent of fear that lingered on her like rotting flesh. “You must stay alive for me. You must promise me that.” 

Charlotte kissed his neck, in that tender place below his ear like their mother used to. “How can you expect me to live after watching you die?” 

Louis didn’t have an answer for her, so he simply kissed her back, pressing his lips to her pale forehead—a blessing, a bond, a spell—like the touch of his doomed body would grant her a reprieve from the coldness of war. 

He ate, he walked Charlotte back to her chambers, and he bade each of his little siblings goodnight, grinding his teeth at times to steady his resolve. He would not let their last memory of him be cowardice. He returned to his own bed and fell into it, fully clothed, resisting the desire to luxuriate in the hours remaining him. No pleasure would soothe him now, no happiness fill the gaping fear that threatened to swallow him whole. Faintly, through his padded bed and the wood timbers of his floor, he heard the pluck of harp strings. Louis fell asleep to their vibrations, wondering how they sounded so near him, for the throne room lay far below…

*

“Show yourself, Prince! Forty days I have come to you each morning! I have come to you as the sun rises in the East!”

From his tent Louis could hear the call. It rang out with the same bitter edge as all the mornings before, only now the buckling of his broad belt and scramasaxe added percussion to the giant’s words. Theodoric handed him his shield. 

“Your armies are thin as the milk of your women! They reek with death, oh Prince, oh mighty warrior! Meet me on this field, save your kingdom!”

Laughter rang out now. The pagans knew what came next. 

“What am I, a mere soldier! You, a prince! Renowned in glory! Son of the King! Chosen of your God! And what am I, to compare to that?”

Louis hefted his sword. The tang perfectly balanced the blade, but this morning it felt less like an extension of his arm and more like a chain ‘round his neck. The giant’s words weren’t true, though; God had not chosen him, Louis. The Church had fought with his father for years, had denied their blessing on his house, had, in fact, chosen another, a peasant boy, a shepherd, the same that plucked the harp and soothed the King’s madness. Louis did not resent God for this. Any just God would have done the same; that such a God had disavowed such a king lent credence, if anything, to the religion his father none the less espoused. In the beginning Louis’ kingly father had been the Church’s greatest convert, had conquered half the pagan world for the One True God, but now… Louis wondered if spilling blood for a God always ended this same way, with madness, with decrepancy. At least he would not live long enough to find out for himself. 

The giant did not know these things, though. The giant saw the King’s banner, saw the Church’s crest, and fought against them in defense of the old ways, the old gods, the old people. If it didn’t mean his own death, Louis might have wished him victory. 

Theodoric sniffed as Louis parted the tent flap to exit into the rising sun. 

“None of that, lad.” 

“Your Highness, you’re…” The boy swiped under his nose, overcome. 

“Say your peace now, lad, you won’t have a chance again.” 

“You’re the best warrior in the kingdom. You can beat him, I know you can. You’re more brave and honorable than him, and you’re the _prince_.” 

“Theodoric.” Louis patted the boy’s shoulder. “I’m not brave. If I were brave I would have gone out the first day he called me, I’d have saved the forty men who went before. I’d have stopped my father from sending his best fighters to an early grave.”

“You could _win_.” The boy’s face held nothing but dumb hope.

“And tomorrow the sun could turn black. You remember what I told you.” 

“Yes, your Highness.” 

“The princess isn’t to see. After.” 

“Yes, your Highness.” 

“They will—_look at me, lad_—they will mutilate me, when it’s over. You’re to get them away well before it begins. Don’t be bound in honor to my bones. Let me be. I will be gone.” 

Theodoric gave a cry then, and flung himself to Louis’ chest, no doubt getting poked by the sharp edges of Louis’ fibula which still fasted his sagum securely.

“No tears, lad, you must take care of my sisters, now. Be strong.” 

Louis disentangled himself from the boy and walked out into the sunshine. Cheers arose from his side, jeers from the other. The giant laughed, a big, billowing sound that filled the air like fog. Louis turned, glanced at his father and at Charlotte; he ever so slightly nodded his head. 

He shed the billowing cloak from his shoulders. Forwards one step at a time, he moved. The ground shook as the giant stomped his great feet, and the sword he swished through the air hummed, sang, its long, crude blade equal to the prince’s own height. Louis stopped ten paces from the warrior and looked up into his deformed face. From a sidelong slit in a helm as large as Louis’ own hips, two piercing blue eyes stared out. Louis stared back. 

“The Prince has come!” The giant roared, and though iron covered his mouth, Louis could feel his smile. 

“I am here.” 

Behind the giant stood Alaric and Ardo, both adorned in finery, swords hung unbloodied from their bladrics, their hair styled long and loose, as was fitting royalty. 

“You will honor your word, Alaric?” Louis called, loud enough to reach both camps. 

“I will.” 

Louis nodded. He steadied his shield, though he knew no flimsy craftsmanship could ward against such a foe. It began. 

Louis sidestepped the first blow. The ground hadn’t stopped reverberating beneath him when the second came. This he deflected with a sharp angled cut above his head, stooping through to swipe at the giant’s legs. He ended in a roll, barely making it to his feet before the next attack fell, this time landing fully on his shield’s iron rim. His arm broke immediately. 

He had prepared for the pain, so he didn’t cry out. Letting the splintered wreckage slip from his broken bones he raised his sword aloft, knowing the moment the giant met him blade to blade he would be finished. 

It was as he’d guessed. The giant’s clash forced the weapon from his practiced grip as if it were nothing more than a wisp of grass. Disarmed and shaking, Louis straightened himself as best he could, fighting against every instinct in him that said _run, hide, fall to your knees, beg for mercy._

A cry sounded from behind him, a woman’s cry. A woman’s, not a girl’s, for that’s what Charlotte was now; her innocence would be forever destroyed, forever lost. Louis prayed she’d turn away. He knew she would not. The shadow of the giant’s raised blade darkened his face, and he looked up, up into the eyes of death. 

“_I WILL FIGHT YOU!_” 

Louis blinked. Someone now stood to his right. 

“I will fight you.” 

Laughter. Gales of laughter. The giant’s sword didn’t swing. 

“_You_? They send me babes to slay instead of princes!”

“All the easier for you, then.” 

“Do you think I cannot, boy?” 

“No. You cannot kill me. I will kill you.” 

The laughter increased. Louis turned to look. He recognized the boy--his eyes green like summer pastures, his curls dark. 

“You have no sword! No shield! Will you fight me with your hands, boy?” 

“With this.” 

Louis watched as his father’s harp player produced a sling from his waistband, the flimsy baldric he wore clinking over his tunica like beggar’s coins. 

“Stand back, King Alaric, a monster approaches! An even grander opponent than a prince!” The giant kicked out—knocking Louis to the ground—and stepped back, once again helfing his sword. His laughter rang in Louis’ ears, endless, deafening. 

Louis watched, dizzy, near-faint, his face half-pressed to the muddy earth, as the giant and boy circled. The youth sidestepped swiftly, lithe, practiced, and it seemed more a game of chase than defense. Louis knew, though, when the giant tired of swatting his fly, for he grunted and began in earnest to bring his brute force to bear, eager to end the taunting, twirling slingshot before him. 

But then—and Louis nearly missed it, so deft was the flick of his wrist, the release of leather and stone—the boy loosed his sling, and the giant froze, teetering on the edge of stability for a long moment before falling forwards, before crashing to the earth.

Beaten. 

Silence from the opposing side. Silence from Louis’ own. Pushing himself from the ground, Louis picked up his sword, knowing what had to be done, knowing the boy couldn’t do it. 

“Turn away, Harry,” he instructed softly, the boy’s name entering his mind easily, as if it had been inadvertently stored near the forefront for easier access. The harpist stood frozen in shock, but with Louis’ words he opened his mouth and breathed, blinked, trembled. “Turn away.” 

Harry did. With one swipe of his sword Louis made the slingshot’s work permanent. The chaos began then, the yelling, the drawing of scramasaxes from broad belts. Men flooded the muddy stretch of earth, some pulling the giant’s head towards the king, others charging the opposing side. All talks of peace lay forgotten, trampled into the ground alongside the giant’s blood; no doubt the grass would grow greener there. Louis grabbed Harry’s hand and stumbled between the throngs, forgoing his own sword in favor of the boy’s touch. Somehow they made it behind the line. Somehow they made it past the rows of onlookers fleeing back inside the town walls. 

Louis could hear the sounds of battle behind him, the death of it, the squelch of it. He knew the enemy was routed, though, for the pagans would have no spirit to fight having lost their talisman, their herald, their legend. Upon nearing the castle gates the crowd realized who mingled in their midst, and Louis lost Harry’s hand as the shepherd boy became entrapped with admirers. Like to a magnet they came, nobels, peasants, foot soldiers, and pressed in for a touch, a glimpse. Louis stood still, a rock in a torrent, until he felt the arms of his sister encompass him. Once in her embrace he let the pain and fatigue overtake him, let Charlotte pull him to his room and call the healer and lay him down in the bed he’d so recently told farewell; in its warm cradle Louis tried to confront the delicious sourness in his stomach and the new kind of ache in his heart. 

*

Theodoric came to fetch him some time later. The boy’s face bore a ruddy pinkness Louis recognized as wine. 

“You have to come, your Highness, the King is calling for you.” 

Louis sat up gingerly, his bound arm throbbing only slightly worse than his head. Could his father not give him two hours of peace? But now that the sounds of battle had faded, the King would turn his attentions to glory, as he always did. Glory or humiliation. Perhaps both. 

“Help me dress, lad,” Louis instructed, indicating his discarded bracco and sagum. 

He hobbled down the stairway with Theodoric in the lead, the boy’s face a perpetual grin; the youth fell just shy of squeezing Louis’ hand and tugging him along in glee. When they reached the throne room Theodoric had to push bodies aside for Louis to slip through; people had packed into every crevice, awe and wonder evident in their auras, and the feeling brushed off on Louis as he bumped endless elbows. He reached the dias and stopped next to Charlotte.

There he knelt, the hero—the shepherd boy the bishop had blessed with holy water mere months before, the gangly runt of a large farm family, a boy with no fighting experience and zero training who had hereunto used his sling only for striking hungry wolves; there he knelt in front of the king with a sword on his shoulder, the resplendent praises of the court echoing off the wooden walls as he received commendation and glory for slaying the greatest warrior in the known world. 

And Louis couldn’t take his eyes from the boy, from the curls that clung to his sweaty neck, from the virulent green of his eyes, his dazed expression, his gulping throat, his trembling knuckles where he strangled the hilt of a new, virgin sword at his side. The king spoke words, words of praise, words of adoration, words meant to cut at Louis, to splinter under his skin, to cause him pain and send him spiraling into jealousy, for this boy had saved the kingdom—this peasant boy who spent his days plucking a lyre and singing to lambs—not Louis. Not Louis, the King’s son, the rightful prince, for he had failed, had been on the verge of death under the blade of that monstrous man until Harry had leapt from the crowd, had offered himself in single combat...

And Louis loved him from that moment on. How, he didn’t understand, but his soul knit itself to the boy, and they became one creature, and Louis knew—as Harry glanced up and met his eyes, a calm peace settling over his face—that they always would be. 

The King spoke more, his ramblings fueled by drink and food and the prospects of pleasure, holding Harry hostage by the edge of his tunica, promising things one promised heros—titles, wealth, marriage—flattering the boy endlessly as courtiers and noblemen all around gossiped the story of his deeds to inflation. When the King led them all to the mead hall for the feast, he kept Harry close still, even as he eyed Louis with squints and mutterings. 

Louis ate very little. Charlotte stroked his hair for a time, braiding it in little strands like her own, and that calmed him, eased his restless anxiety. Several times Harry glanced his way, his stare laden with words unsaid, and Louis would meet it, too full with the strange euphoria of realization to feel shame at the truth he no doubt kept revealing. 

Eventually the courtiers drank themselves into stupors, as did the King. The court’s ladies, Charlotte among them, had left for bed sometime before this, and Louis would have gone too but for the green-eyed boy sitting at the King’s right hand. Sitting in the seat of the heir. The seat of the rightful prince. _His_ seat. 

When Harry finally stood to leave Louis followed, an unspoken coordination relayed between them. The drunken feasters paid them little mind as they slipped into the dark corridor. Past jutting sconces alight with warmth and light they walked, welcoming such beacons that charted the cold castle walls. Harry lead them, though Louis hardly noticed this until they stood before an unfamiliar door. 

“My quarters,” Harry whispered, and Louis realized that save for the battlefield earlier, he had never before heard the harpist speak. 

“I—” Louis licked his lips. They tasted like wine still. “Rest well.” 

Harry unlatched the handle. “I shan’t.” 

Louis felt his brows rise in question. His heartbeat had risen too. 

“I’m shaking, still, in my blood. I want to scream but silence is the only thing binding me together now, and I’m scared.” Harry bowed his head slightly. “I vowed I would never kill a man, you know.” 

Louis felt something ripple through him, and without hesitation he stepped closer to the shepherd boy, suddenly desperate to know his explanation. “Then why did you.” 

“I couldn’t let you die.” Harry leaned against the door and rested his forehead on the coarse wood. 

“Forty men died before me.” 

“Yes. They weren’t you.” 

“You—” Louis hesitated, his voice slipping into whisper. “You don’t know me. Why would you—why did you...” 

Harry pressed deeper into the door, perhaps seeking a solid anchor. “I do, though. I see you every day, see you bear your father’s madness and rule the kingdom in his stead. I see you care for your family… I see you—I see you speak gently to your servants and I see you kiss your horse when you dismount him at the castle gates.” Harry swallowed, turning his face away as best he could. 

“Who are you,” Louis murmured, half to himself, but Harry thought it a real question. 

“You won’t remember, but you were there when the Bishop brought me from among my father’s sheep and anointed me.” 

“I remember.” Louis had wondered at the Bishop’s brashness, at his open rebellion in naming a peasant boy as God’s chosen leader, and doing so especially at a mass to celebrate the King’s long reign. But his father’s madness had sundered him from God, and the Church demanded deference, even from a King who had conquered half the pagan world under their banner. 

“You probably hated me.” 

“I didn’t.” Louis had always known he would never be king. “God left this family when my mother did. I understood why they chose you.” 

“I…” Harry pulled away from the door to meet Louis’ eyes. “I saw you, too, that day. When the Bishop told me I must come here and calm the king with my music, I only agreed because… because… I thought you might even let me be as a horse to you, a servant worthy of your passing affections. I’ve wished that for so long.” 

Awe choked Louis’ breath as understanding breached his doubts. “You saved my life, shepherd boy.” 

Harry smiled, two perfect dimples appearing in his cheeks, “You call me boy as if you are fully a man, but your face is as smooth as mine.” 

Louis felt his skin heat, tingle. “Perhaps.” 

“Two summers, maybe three you’ve seen that I have not. I am glad it’s not the other way, for I don’t think I could bear knowing I existed before you, without you.” 

“You speak like you play the harp, in poems and moonlight. But you don’t know me, not really.” Nor did he know what Louis really desired; how could he? Louis wanted to reach out, to take the harpist’s hand, but he remained oddly frozen in place. 

“Let me know you, then.” Harry opened the door, revealing a small bed stood in the corner of the room, the most inviting thing Louis had ever beheld. 

Harry stepped over the threshold and beckoned Louis to follow. He did. Harry closed the door behind them. 

“You will need proper raiment,” Louis began, not knowing how else to shed the skin of his status, to expose his intentions for what they were, “And a bright sagum, for Father will have you at his side every day now.” Louis undid his baldric as best he could with one hand, setting the leather piece carefully on the ground between them. Some servant had fetched and cleaned his sword, and this too he laid at Harry’s feet, along with his scramasaxe and the small axe ornamentally tucked in his belt. “Take these. My gift to you.” 

Harry stepped over the objects, over the gleaming pile of warped moonlight they created. “More,” he mouthed, his eyes skating across Louis’ face, wide and eager. 

“My arm,” Louis breathed, motioning to his useless limb, unsure how to stop shivering, stop questioning, stop tensing. 

With nimble fingers Harry loosed the fibulae at Louis’ shoulder and let the cloak it held flutter to the ground before tugging off his tunica, gently, carefully, reverently, and Louis let him, little pockets of breath catching in his chest each time the shepherd boy brushed bare skin. With the fall of the bracco covering his legs Louis stood naked, only the cloth binding on his arm surviving to cover him. Harry stared for a time, at his face and nothing else, and Louis began to wonder if the harpist had acted out of curiosity only, out of desire to prove that Louis was indeed flesh and blood like him, that royalty had not crafted him of marble or myth; but then Harry began to fumble at the thin cloth of his own tunica; he shook noticeably throughout, and thus it seemed forever before he straightened up, likewise bare, likewise tense, unsure. 

Louis placed his uninjured hand on Harry’s heaving chest. “I’m no giant for you to tremble so.” 

“Oh no, my Prince. It’s not fear.” Harry dropped his gaze at last. “It’s holiness.” 

“This is far from holy.” 

Harry shook his head. “It is the very _essence_ of holy. Men tremble before gods. I tremble before you.” 

Heat pooled, thick, viscous, in the bottom of Louis’ belly. He had never before asked what he was about to, and he knew that never again would he request this from another soul. “Will you lie with me, my hero?” 

Harry took his hand in answer, gently, still shaking, and guided him to the tiny bed. He fit himself on first, then pulled Louis down, mindful of his injury. Between them the air grew dense with heat, but neither made to move. After several moments of shallow breaths Harry spoke. 

“I can see his eyes. The giant.” 

“You’ll see them again. Every pair you close, they haunt you for a time. But I’m here, I’m here.” Slowly Louis reached out and laid his fingers along the shepherd boy’s side; he pet across Harry’s cresting hip, down his thigh, until his hand burned with the fever of want. 

“Do you…” Harry bit his lip, trailing off.

“Do I?”

“Touch each soldier that saves your life?” 

Louis chuckled. “None have ever done so. You’re the first.” 

“Am I?” 

Harry had a way of saying double what he meant. “The only.” Louis let his hand wander now, exploring the soft planes of Harry’s torso, the gentle rise and fall of his ribs. “Who are you,” Louis murmured again, continuing this time, “That I feel I’ve known you always? That today I’ve merely turned over a common pebble and discovered it to have always been a jewel?”

Harry whimpered and moved his body closer. Though their skins still didn’t touch, the heat of him radiated into Louis’ blood. 

“Shepherd boy—my soul, it decided for me, decided that I am bound to you.” 

“As did mine.” Harry laid a tentative hand on Louis’ waist. “Make a covenant with me, my prince.”

“In blood?” 

Harry brought their bodies together at last, relieving their lustful swellings with pressured friction. “More than blood.” 

“And what is more than blood, shepherd boy?”

“Let me show you,” Harry whispered, bringing his lips to Louis’, kissing him deeply, hungrily, with tears and tongue and teeth. 

For blood was the price of war and gods, of birth and death, and that night the prince and shepherd boy forsook all those powers for the bond of love. That night they spilled promises into each other’s flesh, coaxing from their bodies baptismal fonts, sanctifying each other with blessings that sounded like kisses. 

When dawn broke they’d not slept, thus they did so at last, pillowed against each other, one being already. Louis would no longer dream of perfumed beds and faceless lovers; he doubted he’d ever even dream again, not with the boy of his every yearning tucked securely in his arms. 

*

Louis blocked the blow with his shield, wincing at the echo of pain that rippled down his arm. 

“Louis?” Harry lowered his sword, his face stricken.

With an arcing swipe Louis disarmed his opponent. The cool tip of his blade rested on Harry’s heaving chest. 

“Never let your guard down.” 

“Your arm,” Harry protested.

“_Never_ let your guard down.” Louis released him, a smile hovering about his lips. 

Harry was quick, practiced, nimble, but his weakness lay in mercy. Time and again he would hesitate for a half-moment, and that’s all the opening an adversary needed. The King remained stubbornly determined that Harry would lead his armies in the wars, taking Louis’ place, but while the shepherd boy had a mind for strategy and clever surprises, Louis knew he’d never be able to kill in hand to hand combat. For this reason he insisted on serving as Harry’s right hand man, though he could have finally acted on his wish to disappear from battles forever. Charlotte reminded him as much before the last campaign, asked him why he didn’t set out for the horizon as he’d always wanted to—free from the burdens of his birth that he’d resented for so long—for their father spoke of nothing but having Harry as his heir, and had seemed to forget Louis’ very existence. The King had always been vain and subject to the whims of those who flattered him, and from commoner to noble the entire kingdom loved the shepherd boy who’d slayed the giant. The Church also, for all its meddling, approved this choice, both because it reaffirmed the Bishop’s earlier prophecy and neatly mended the rift between Church and King.

Louis _would_ have left, would have gladly been relieved to slip from his current existence and work in a field somewhere and become a nobody, plucking out foods from the womb of the earth. He’d never cared for titles or honors, and had never wanted to be king, and though Harry would look apologetic and unsure as he stepped into the shoes Louis once filled, the prince reassured him that he didn’t _mind_; indeed, the praises of jostling crowds as they rode home, victorious, from battle after battle, only made Louis’ heart swell with pride, for he’d lavish the same praises on his lover at night, when they were alone and bare and full of tender lust. 

So of course Louis could not leave. Harry had enchanted him, body and soul. And he realized, with chills and wonder sometimes, that the shepherd boy possessed something that _should_ always mark a rightful king: divinity. When he’d first realized this—on a night void of moon when he’d been unable to see Harry’s skin in the dark war-tent, had needed to feel about with his lips, had drunk the spoils of Harry’s body by memory for the hundredth time—he immediately wondered how the Bishop had missed such a threat. For Harry represented more than a mere prophesied ruler, a chosen weapon of God; no, he had become a force unto himself, gaining favor with all he met, earning loyalty with his kind words and honest eyes and winning battles with the sharp of his mind. The old gods would have destroyed a man like Harry, would have cast him into darkness out of jealousy, and Louis wondered at the new God’s tolerance for such blatant idolatry on the part of His people, His King, His Church. 

Though perhaps these other players did not understand such implications, Louis recognized his actions towards Harry as _worship_. Gladly he offered himself in living sacrifice. Happily he tended to Harry’s every need, and always Harry reciprocated, nourishing his heart. How the boy loved him, Louis did not comprehend. He only knew that Harry _did_. 

“Your Highness, my Lord, the King has requested you.” Theodoric interrupted Louis’ thoughts.

Harry sheathed his blade and Louis mirrored him. Side by side they walked from the courtyard to the throne room, their steps synchronized subconsciously, their arms brushing several times when the servant boy’s attention wandered. 

Louis felt an unseasy knot settle in his stomach the moment he saw Charlotte standing beside his father, her head slightly bowed. He hurried forwards, breaking stride, to take his sister’s hand. 

She glanced up at him with brimming eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, loud enough for him alone to hear. 

“I have decided,” the King began, drawing silence from the group of courtiers milling around the throne, “To make our hero my son!” 

Applause rang out, but Louis didn’t yet understand. 

“Harry,” the King shouted this, his voice rankled with drink, “Shall wed the Princess Charlotte!” 

Cheers erupted then, but Louis couldn’t hear them. Sound had ceased from his senses and only ache filled the chambers of his mind. He finally registered Charlotte squeezing his hand. 

Calmly, as if his body were possessed by a gentle breeze, he turned to find Harry, to see his reaction. The shepherd boy looked much the same as Louis felt, open-mouthed, speechless, pale. With halting motions Harry approached the princess, knelt before her, took her hand and kissed her pale knuckles, but when he raised his eyes, he raised them to Louis. 

Charlotte kept Louis by her side, throughout the feasting that followed, throughout the rankled drinking and toasting, until the evening had waned to midnight. At last she begged Louis for escort to her chambers, so he stood and walked with her, each step a shock to his numb limbs. 

“It is done now, brother. Father has cut you out. I begged him not to…” 

“Oh dove,” Louis’ voice caught and he kissed Charlotte’s hair, “I care nothing for that.”

“Then why do you look as if as blade has pierced your heart?” 

He had never lied to his sister, but he couldn’t find words to tell her the truth. Louis lowered his eyes. 

“You love him, don’t you,” Charlotte asked, her voice a sweet whisper. 

Louis nodded, blinking against the sudden tears in his eyes. 

“And this is why you’ve not left. Why you’ve stayed despite father’s humiliations.” Charlotte clutched his hand, her voice growing softer still. “You have… lain with him? Like with a woman?” 

Ashes lined his throat. “Sister, I—” But he could not. 

Charlotte cupped his chin with her pale hand, tilting his gaze to meet hers. She searched his eyes, finding the answers his lips refused to say, then gave his arm a final squeeze before entering her chambers. Louis stalled a while before returning to his own room to collect his shattered spirit; of course when he did, he found Harry there, waiting for him, fallen to the floor, his head in his hands, sobbing as if the world would end. Perhaps theirs had. 

*

The night of the wedding Louis watched as drunken feasters carried away the bride and groom, carried them to their wedding bed, the King’s lewd commentary pelting in their wake. Dejected, tortured, counting the minutes, Louis retreated to his room, hating the emptiness of his chamber. He lay on his bed, fully clothed, trying to banish the images that danced before his waking eyes, haunting him to madness. 

The moon had risen high in the sky before he heard a scratching sound at the shutters of his window. Thinking it a bird, he rose to dislodge it. He found Harry instead, clinging to a sturdy vine, sweat running down his face from the exertion. Without hesitation Louis hauled him inside.

Harry fell on his mouth in an instant, kissing him with unrestrained need, linking his legs around Louis’ hips and sending them both tumbling backwards to the bed. Louis accepted this, thankful, grateful, hopeful that this meant he would not lose the boy he loved entirely. They breathed against each other as their kisses turned slower, deliberate, exploratory. Only as the fever of their haste diminished did Louis notice the wet fabric of Harry’s sleeve. He opened his eyes and glanced down, reeling in shock as he saw a dull red stain in the soft moonlight. 

“You’re bleeding,” he exclaimed, breaking their kiss and taking Harry’s injured arm, pulling back the sodden cloth and finding a gash, sharp and clean, made by a knife. 

Harry swallowed, his voice thin. “We needed blood.” 

In a moment the pieces fell into place. Awash with relief, with ecstasy, Louis pressed his mouth over the wound and sealed it with his tongue, licking away the life-force that would be used as proof against Charlotte’s bed clothes come morning. 

“She is not angry?” Louis finally got out, half scared to hear the answer. He hadn’t spoken to his sister of their secret since the betrothal; he’d been too ashamed. 

“It was her plan. She knows.” Harry pressed his hips against Louis’, belying his distraction. 

“Would that this could be your wedding bed, shepherd boy,” Louis whispered, fumbling with the ties of Harry’s bracco.

“You think that it is not, already? How many times have you sealed vows inside of me.” 

“My love….” Louis freed his groin of clothing. 

“Seal them again, my Prince, remind me of the tip of your sword, sheath your blade where I can keep it safe.” 

Louis would have cried out when their bodies joined, but Harry swallowed the sounds of his mouth, drowned them with his searching tongue. They moved in a strange rhythm, at once steady but irregular, their bodies widening, lengthening, tapering to the push and pull of their dance, perhaps beating out the customary dirge of men fated to die. 

*

War weighed upon Louis like a millstone, heavy and brutish. He cared little for his own flesh, but at night he would cry out in his dreams, convinced that he had failed in safeguarding Harry, convinced that an enemy sword had darted past his shield, an arrow had rained down on them from above, a spear had found its mark. Covered in sweat and grim he would awake to Harry beside him, and for minutes afterward he would remain perfectly still, checking that the shepherd boy still breathed. 

Often, Harry awoke from Louis’ thrashings, and on those nights he would soothe his prince’s fears with the stroke of his hand, the press of his lips. No doubt the other soldiers could hear all that happened inside the thin tent walls, but war was a place of secrets, and more so than in the palace Louis allowed himself the luxury of Harry’s care and comfort. 

They soundly beat the Visigoths and claimed much of Aquitania. Twice they drove the Alemanni Kingdom within its own borders, and on the second attempt managed to impose the Pope’s precincts in much of the land. Harry’s victory that had been, for he refused a direct order to kill the Kingdom’s men and spoil their women, instead reasoning that converted pagans were in fact fellow subjects of the Church and entitled to treatment as such. So it continued. Harry led the wars. Louis protected Harry. Harry protected those they conquered, and always they conquered. Harry had never led a campaign but to win it, and such became his reputation of fairness and mercy that leaders would surrender to him before the first blow, disowning their gods and pledging allegiance to the One, and though the Pope thought these new souls a credit to his greatness, Louis knew the truth; they belonged to Harry alone. 

Four years passed in this way, months of war parsed with months of peace, days of leisure and mornings of battle. With yet another victory the Prince and shepherd rode through the city gates once more to flowers and cheers and a parade of welcome. Louis turned and smiled at the green-eyed man beside him, for Harry was no longer a boy. His gangly limbs had thickened and his jaw turned sharp, and in the dusk of day his upper lip would bear signs of a shadow. 

They dismounted inside the castle courtyard, Theodoric there to meet them and take their steeds. Charlotte rushed out, followed by the other princesses, and threw herself upon Louis, disregarding her husband until she’d kissed her brother and stroked his hair and hugged him with all her strength. 

“You’re home. You’re alive, and you’re okay.” 

“Always, my dove.” 

Charlotte embraced Harry fondly. “Father is in one of his moods. He’s asking for you, Harry.” 

With a quick glance to Louis behind Charlotte’s back, Harry made to follow her inside. Louis inclined his head, acknowledging the pretence they now needed to resume. He kissed his other sisters and followed a ways behind, and hence by the time he came to the throne room, Harry had already begun to pluck his harp—the small, wooden instrument strung like hunting bows that he carried with him always. Charlotte sat at their father’s feet, her gown tucked around her ankles, as if she feared the chill of the rushes beneath her, or some other coldness yet to make itself visible. 

Months had passed since the King had heard such music, but each night Louis fell asleep to the lulling timbre of satin strings, their harmonies simple, their melodies like birdsong, repetitive in a customary way like a bubbling spring, always water but ever morphing form. Louis approached his father and knelt before him. 

“I’ve heard the crowds,” muttered the King, “They chant his name.” 

Louis rose and nodded his head. “Yes, father. They celebrate our kingdom’s victories, our God’s victories.” 

The King snapped his arm outwards and pointed to the harpist. “They celebrate _him_.” 

Louis approached the dias, timidly at first, then, as his father didn’t flinch away, he took the gnarled, wrinkled hand of the King in his own. “Yes, father. They celebrate your _heir_. Your son in law.” 

Harry’s music droned on, a pallet unsuited for the King’s tone. “Tell me, did I achieve such little glory in my time that they so easily forget? Did God not reside in _my_ spirit and grant me this kingdom?” 

Charlotte had stood, a warning in her eyes. Harry could not hear the King’s words. 

“Father, my liege.” Louis kissed the green signet ring. “Your glory is renowned in all the kingdoms. Countless songs have been sung of your greatness.” 

“Not sung by _him_.” The King pushed Louis away, causing him to stumble and nearly fall to the ground. Charlotte caught his arm and steadied him. “Away! The both of you! My eyes are sick of looking upon such cowering dogs who share my blood. Off! Begone!” 

His sister tight in his arms, Louis inched towards the door, slowly, steadily. Charlotte’s pulse had picked up and he could feel her fear beneath his palms. Harry, who had no doubt heard this bout of shouting, played still, pretending he had not. Louis spared him a cautioning glace. 

The siblings had turned down a second hallway when the crash met their ears. Yelling followed the noise, and without a second’s hesitation Louis bolted back towards the throne room, heart in his throat. Harry tumbled into him moments later, blood seeping from his collarbone down his tunica. 

“_He threw a spear_,” Harry whispered, trembling. “He meant to _kill_ me.” 

Louis clutched him close, unsure which direction to run, what haven would grant them safety, for he could hear the King screaming, “They chant in the street, boy! They chant outside the palace! _I_ have conquered thousands but _you_ your ten thousands! God’s _chosen one_? _I made you_, boy, _I MADE YOU_!” 

Harry’s blood had stained Louis’ clothing now, too. “The garden,” Louis whispered, cradling Harry against him as they ran from the echoes of madness. Soon they tumbled out a small wooden door and into the overgrown forest of berries and fruit trees and lilies that rambled amidst forgotten roses, wild and thorn-heavy. The prince pulled the shepherd behind a row of hedges, laying him back against the cool stones of the palace’s foundation. 

“It just grazed me,” Harry explained as Louis unpinned his fibulae and pulled the sagum from his shoulder, exposing a shallow gash, bright with young blood. 

“Did you stop playing?” Louis asked as he ripped off a bit of his own garment and cleaned Harry’s torn skin. 

“No.” 

Louis bit his lip, understanding that his father had crossed the last threshold of sanity; if Harry’s music couldn’t save him, nothing now could. 

“Don’t worry, Louis. It will pass, as it always does.” He stayed Louis’ hand. “Your eyes look like they do in battle, my prince.” 

“Because I thought we were safe, I thought I could let my guard down. And here I’ve almost lost you.” Louis felt fat tears roll down his cheeks. 

“Louis…” 

“Wait here, hide, until I’ve made sure the spirit has passed from him.”

Harry nodded, his curls creasing with the motion. Louis cupped a hand under his lover’s jaw and rubbed his thumb against the sparse stubble he found there. “When it is safe to come out, I will come and ask Theodoric to fetch me a rose.” He kissed Harry gently on the mouth and crawled from the bushes, making sure no one observed him. 

Trying to check his hatred for his father, Louis strode into the throne room, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The King sat slumped, cowed in both mind and body, his crown pushing down the wrinkled skin of his left eyebrow. 

“Where’s the boy,” he growled out as Louis approached. 

“Why would you do that, father.”

“I see you’ve been _with_ him.” The King motioned to Louis’ bloody clothes. 

“Father, answer me.” 

The King licked his lips, tasting the air like a snake. “He took your place.” 

Louis’ jaw tensed, the awful metallic tang of fear surging up from his throat to coat his tongue. “You chose him, father, you and the Church. Do you not recall?”

“Recall? Of course I recall, you slavering idiot! But he…” the King’s eyes roved in madness across the walls of the room, “He wants more. He’s planning to take my kingdom, he is. He’s got the people to _worship_ him, haven’t you heard? Are you _deaf,_ stupid boy?”

Shaking his head, Louis fought to keep his breath steady, “Father, Harry doesn’t want to usurp you, he—”

“No he wants to _end me_. They want us FINISHED, boy, don’t you understand? My bloodline _erased_.” 

“Father! It was you who gave him Charlotte!” 

“She has borne no son.” The King’s face twisted up in putrid bitterness. “That has been his plan all along, that has been how he will finish us.” After a long pause, the King reached out and yanked Louis close by his baldric. “You must _kill him_.” 

Louis didn’t have time for the trauma of those words to settle inside him, for suddenly Charlotte’s voice sounded close beside them.

“Father?” 

Louis freed himself from the King’s hold and retreated a safe distance, numb to the words still ringing in his ears. 

“Father,” Charlotte repeated, looking far more like her mother than ever before as she took the King’s hand and kissed his signet ring. “You are mistaken, my liege. Harry is ever loyal to you. I _am_ with child.” 

The King narrowed his eyes at her, but let her keep hold of his withered hand. 

“These months I have kept it a secret, for fear the harsh spring would claim it from me, but now summer has come.” 

The King did not know where Charlotte’s face hid her lies, and so when he looked on her, he believed her. Immediately his countenance flickered into a well-worn mask of jollity. Springing from his throne he roared, “Where is my heir? Where is my son in law, that I may kiss him! Guards, search the castle, bring me Harry, and prepare a feast! Call the courtiers! Lay the tables!” 

Without another glance towards his two children the King hurried from the room, barking instructions at an ever-accumulating number of servants as he went. 

“My dove,” Louis grabbed Charlotte into his arms, “What have you done.”

“Saved you both, brother. And for the second time.” 

“This is not a simple lie, Charlotte.”

“But it buys us a little while.” The princess stretched up and kissed Louis’ cheek, adding in a whisper, “It is only a matter of time before father kills us all. His madness is worsening day by day; I feared you would return too late.” 

Louis wasted no time in taking Theodoric to the gardens and loudly instructing him to pluck a rose. Harry appeared in the mead hall a short time later, freshly washed and dressed. The King seemed to have completely forgotten his previous rage and lavished Harry with praise and promises, insisting the shepherd take his customary seat to the King’s right, insisting he be served the finest ale and largest cuts of meat. 

Louis ate quietly, his mind full of questions and imagined scenarios and escape plans. But how could one escape one’s own kingdom? Or one’s own duty? In time the King drank himself into a stupor and servants came to carry him to his chambers. The court left soon after for their beds, bellies full and spirits high. Only Louis and Harry remained at table.

Louis drained the last of his wine. “You would never leave me, would you, my love?” He knew the answer. 

“Never.” 

Pushing up from the table, Louis shook his head. “Promise me, Harry. You must promise me you will, if I ask it of you.” 

Confusion blanketed Harry’s expression as he threw back his chair and rushed to Louis’ side, taking his hand. “What?” 

“If the day comes when you must choose between me or this kingdom, you must,” he hesitated, lowering his voice and letting it assume a new gravity, “You _must_ choose duty. You must choose duty for my sisters and the court and _our people_, Harry. Watching my father tonight… surely the rumors of his madness have spread. The church will have heard. Neighboring lands too, no doubt. Promise me you will keep yourself safe. Promise me you will stay alive to take your place as king.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“Because you were chosen, either by God or by fate, I can’t pretend to know, and I am but a complication to your destiny, my love. But I know your loyalty, Harry.” Louis reached out and tucked a curl behind his ear. “You must not let it kill you.” 

Harry bucked backwards, eyes shiny. “And how am I to do that?” He nearly yelped the words. 

“Father is appeased for now. But if his mood turns again, you must leave.”

“And you’ll come too?”

Louis swallowed. “I can’t protect you from him if I go with you.” 

Harry turned his back to Louis and inhaled raggedly. “You have better aim than the King. You’ve pierced my very heart.” 

“Shepherd boy,” Louis wrapped his arms around Harry’s stiff form, “I said _if_.” 

“You know there is no _if_, my prince, only _when_.” 

Louis didn’t answer, simply pulled Harry closer. 

They walked slowly along the darkened passages to Louis’ chambers; even the sconces had flickered out, used up by the darkness. Darkness used everything up, especially time. As Louis closed his door behind them and began to undress, he thought of how they had so little time until dawn, so little time until Charlotte’s lie became untenable, so little time until the next bought of monarchal madness. 

As if reading his mind, Harry shed his garments in a few deft motions and pulled down the musty bed clothes, heavy with pollen and dust and summer. 

“I’ve forgotten what a proper bed feels like,” Harry murmured. 

“So have I.” Louis finished striping and climbed in as well. “Harry?” 

“My Prince?” 

“Did you know? When the old Bishop pulled you from the crowd of your brothers that day, had you felt it before?”

“Felt what?” Harry sidled in close, twining their legs. 

“God. Had you felt God.” When Harry didn’t respond save placing a hand against Louis’ heart, he continued. “When I was small, mother would sing me songs about the old gods… she remembered, you see, from before. Father caught her once and threatened to have her burned… and I rushed at him with my scramasaxe. He hated me from that moment on.” 

“You never speak of your mother.” 

“I hate to make her memory return to this place; it was so cruel to her. I feel as if I’m pulling her back from beyond whenever I invoke her name, and more than anything I want her to only feel joy, now.” 

Harry began to trace patterns against Louis’ skin, grazing over the thin hair of his chest, bumping against his small nipples.

“For years I thought the wind was God,” Harry confessed quietly. “I would be with the sheep and it would stream through my hair or billow my clothes and I would look, and a wolf approached, or a thief, or a lamb had gotten caught in the thicket. I would think God was speaking to me in the way the grass waved or the clouds moved. I swore I could hear Him in the leaves of the forest. I always thought He had a kind voice, a gentle voice.” 

“Like yours,” Louis interjected. Harry offered a slight smile.

“I would have stayed, I think.” 

“Stayed?”

“With that God. The one in the hills.” 

“But surely it’s the same God, for he chose you to be king.” 

Harry tucked his head to Louis’ shoulder. “I thought so at first. I thought He desired the sound of my harp inside his church walls, I thought he had tired of having to snatch away my songs of worship on the breeze. And so I left my flock for Him, my little lambs. I thought I _knew_ Him. I had promised to never kill my fellow man, to be only kind and gentle, like his words, like the wind, but then… It seems He wanted blood too, in the end.” 

“Only the pagans sacrifice in blood, Harry.” 

“You think conquering is not a blood offering? The thousands we’ve killed in God’s name, the cities we’ve forced to worship at the point of a sword?” Harry’s voice quavered now. “The giant and his people, they were fighting for their gods, too.” 

“You killed that man to _save me_.” Louis pet at Harry’s face, smoothing his curls and rubbing away the wet from his cheeks. “Wind isn’t always gentle. There are gales too, remember.” 

“But I didn’t love Him for the gales.” Harry moved his arm to drape over Louis’ side, to run his fingers along the Prince’s spine. “I wouldn’t have wanted this if I’d known.” 

“What if—” Louis could hardly speak it, for even the thought terrified him, filled him with a crushing kind of awe. “What if God changed because you did?”

“That’s not how gods work,” Harry argued, resuming his study of Louis’ bones. 

“Perhaps not the old gods. But this God seems tied to you somehow, Harry. As if…” Louis’ voice trailed off as he breathed in Harry’s scent. He smelled all too human, verve with sweat and lust and a hint of wine. But hadn’t he always seen it? Hadn’t Louis always seen the divinity in the shepherd’s kind eyes, his gentle heart, his loving soul? Hadn’t he always worshiped this boy, this man, hadn’t the entire kingdom? Was it so outlandish to assume a God could be human too? The singularity of the new God had always seemed so very wrong, as if he were splintered away, alone, baren. 

“You don’t understand what I’m saying,” Harry heaved, bringing his hot lips to press at Louis’ neck. “God lost all my oaths the moment I laid eyes on you, standing there in your finery beside the King as I was anointed to take your place. Don’t you see, Louis? This blood is all my fault. Because I loved you more.” 

Louis felt a snap up his spine, a jolt of something like truth that burned white in his vision for a moment before settling deep in his groin. 

“Did I steal you from God?” He laughed, half amused, half frozen in fear. “Did He so need your love that He’s sought the blood of thousands to take its place? Will He never be appeased?” 

Harry stilled. “Louis. I don’t think I’ll stop loving you ever, even in death. I think I shall love you through all of time. How much blood is worth an endless love?” 

Louis cuddled flush against the other man, joining their hips, seeking friction for the stilted want of their bodies. “I don’t much care, as I don’t care for the jealousy of gods. He cannot have you like I can, He cannot bond himself inside of you and share your heartbeats and taste your release. Gods don’t have lips,” Louis kissed him, “Gods don’t have hands,” Louis slid his hand down Harry’s back ‘til he could open the core of him, “Gods don’t have pricks.” 

Louis rolled Harry over and kissed him deeply. Slowly his fingers achieved their goal and he withdrew them, replacing them with the thickness between his legs. He memorized Harry’s face as they became one, for if God could resent him this, then it must truly be more precious than all the riches of the earth, more intangible than the sunrise. Louis watched as Harry’s lips pulled apart and he lay, mouth gaping, eyes fluttering between lidded and closed, carving out a crease in his passion-damp forehead. His nostrils flared, mirroring the expansion of his body elsewhere, as Louis sank deeper; when he could push no further he stilled, scooping up lungfuls of air he’d been denying himself in favor of consuming the minutiae of Harry’s responses. 

“If I am part of God, then you must also be,” Harry rasped, “For we are one, Louis.”

They began their dance, slowly at first, swells like waves punctuated by Harry’s cries. Louis wondered if he alone, out of all mankind, had borne the honor of ravishing a god... 

Louis drew out form the engulfing heat of his lover, already spewing his release. He enclosed the shepherd’s leaking prick in his hand and squeezed. 

“Let me steal you from Him fully,” Louis began, moving to straddle Harry’s chest even as his hand maintained its hold. Harry bucked beneath him as Louis dribbled ribbons of pearly wet across his forehead. Responding in kind, Harry released himself into the crevices of Louis’ fingers, a sound very like a howl, very like a prayer, issuing from his mouth. 

“You’ve anointed me,” Harry cried out. “Holy water...” 

Louis sank down atop the other man, mouth already searching for the origin of Harry’s words. They didn’t move to cover themselves or dislodge the sticky remnants of their lust. They fell asleep, forgetting the dangers of the morning, oblivious to the wind, for outside the castle, a gale had begun. 

*

Peace meant no escape. Louis would sit in the throne room as Harry plucked his harp strings, crafting sonic stories unmatched in beauty but lost on the joyless ears of the King. Desperately Louis fought against the urge to be lulled like his father, to fall into a soft complacency and believe all would remain well. 

Theodoric, hardly fourteen and the most innocuous of catalysts, triggered the destruction of their fragile state. As Louis sat to his father’s left listening to Harry’s soft harp, the servant boy ran towards him in a panic, his face eager with duty. 

“Your Highness, my Lord Harry forgot this in the bed clothes, I went to wash them and I nearly lost it in the river, and you said he must wear it always and—”

“Thank you, lad,” Louis cut the boy off, taking Harry’s ring, the mark of his succession, from the boy’s sweaty palm; but his father had already registered the servant’s words and his gaze, though unchanged in direction, bore an understanding Louis had learned to fear. 

For several minutes the King remained silent. Then, with the smoothness of oil he spoke, hardly turning in Louis’ direction. 

“Fetch me my maps, boy, I wish to see the borders again.” 

Louis understood the test. Refusal was not an option. As he stood, he shot Harry a warning with his eyes, willing him to comprehend the danger closing in around them. Slowly he walked from the throne room, then, once out of sight in the corridor, he broke into a run, sprinting to the King’s chambers and back, a horrible stitch finding his side as he exited the passageway and re-entered the throne room. As he came in view of Harry he noticed that the King had risen and begun to wander along the far wall, behind Harry’s back. Not a moment too soon did Louis see the King remove a jewel-crested javelin from its mount on the wall. Letting the maps fall to his feet in a cascade of crinkled parchment, Louis sprang forward and leapt at Harry, knocking him flat just as the weapon flew by inches overhead. 

“Father!” Louis screamed, red fringing his vision. 

“There is no _heir_.” The King withdrew his weighty sword, though he hadn’t used the blade in years. 

“Run, _run_,” Louis threw Harry to his feet and lunged at his father, leaving his own sword holstered and instead grappling to rid the King of his grip. He didn’t have time to turn and watch Harry hesitate, but he knew the shepherd would. So he yelled again, “_Run_ Harry, _leave now_!” 

He could barely hear his lover’s receding footfalls with the King’s heavy grunting in his ear. Though old, the man trumped Louis in girth and height, and not until the guards pulled them apart did Louis have a second to catch his breath. 

“_Traitor,_” the King growled, spitting at Louis’ feet. “You think I’m blind? Do you think I don’t know how you’ve chosen the son of a peasant to your own confusion?” 

The guards seemed unsure of their places; they angled around the King as if Louis were the one ready to strike. 

“Do you think I’ve not heard how your loins are barren, boy? How you spill your seed but forsake the touch of women?”

Louis gulped in air, but still felt as if he were drowning. 

“How long,” the King slathered, “_How long_ has God’s heir been warming your bed!” 

Hot faced, dizzy, Louis stared his father in the eyes. “Since the beginning.” 

Without waiting for an answer he turned and stalked away, racing for the gardens as soon as he had rounded the corner, for he knew Harry would not have left yet. Not without a farewell. 

“Louis!” Harry grabbed his hand and pulled him behind a grove of berries as soon as he set foot on the dirt. “Did he hurt you, did—”

“There’s no time,” Louis whispered, already feeling the pull of tears at his throat. “Promise me, promise me you’ll take care of my family, our people, our kingdom.” 

“Louis I—”

“Make me a vow before God. Swear upon Him, Harry, that you’ll keep yourself safe until my father is no longer a threat. Swear it.” 

“This might yet be a passing thing, in a day or three—”

“Harry no, not this time.” 

“—He might come to his senses, he might—”

“No, my love.” 

“Let me return on the third day, in the morning, before the doves have started to sing. Bring Theodoric, tell him to fetch a rose if it is safe.” 

Harry pleaded with his eyes, his face, his soul, and Louis knew the rose would never be plucked, but still he nodded in agreement. 

“And if the roses have all died, you will flee. You swear it.” 

“I swear it.” Harry held his hands too tightly. 

Louis heard the clank of metal and knew the guards had entered the garden. He kissed Harry quickly on the brow and turned him towards the small gate that led out to the city. 

“I love you, Harry, as I love my own soul. Go.” 

The guards never saw a young man with reddened eyes and curly hair slip away into the afternoon sun, but they did find Louis, glued to the dirt behind a hedge, his head in his hands. 

*

The King’s anger did not abate. Louis bore it alone, commanding Charlotte to not leave her chambers, to not even show her face least she make herself a target. Louis knew but for his existence as the King’s only son, he would have been put to death. The King spoke of nothing but putting Harry to death, of trouncing the Church and their presumptuous interference once and for all, of making Louis watch the man he loved be burned at the stake, of reclaiming his throne from the ‘beggars of the land.’ Louis knew Harry should not come back. Every guard knew his face, every servant his voice. Still, on the morning of the third day, he could not help but feel his heart thrill as he stepped into the garden, Theodoric at his heels. 

“Why must be pick flowers so early, your Highness?” The servant boy asked with a yawn. 

“Because at nighttime I could not see.” 

The youth wrinkled his brow, but Louis continued. “Look at yonder rose hedge, lad. I was going to have you pick one for me, but I can see now that they are all dead.” 

Theodoric’s confusion didn’t lessen. “Yes, your Highness.” 

“They are dead beyond hope.” Louis patted the boy’s shoulder. “Go back to your bed, lad.” 

“Yes, your Highness,” Theodoric muttered as he turned to leave, yawning. 

Louis walked towards a small grove of fruit trees, leafy and low to the earth in the height of summer. A hand pulled him into their depths. 

“I cannot,” Harry whispered against his lips, crying already. 

“And I cannot watch you die,” Louis replied, surging against his lover’s tongue and caging Harry in his arms. 

“I could live here, in the garden, no one ever comes here, I—”

“You must leave this kingdom, you must go to where the Church can protect you. They will work to unseat a mad king, I should think. This will not be forever, my love.”

“Then you must make me a vow, Louis, in exchange for mine.” 

“Anything,” Louis promised, his chest throbbing. 

“Vow you will be with me always, even until the end of time.”

“I am no god, Harry.” 

“But you have been one with me. We are part of each other, now. Always.” 

Louis nodded, his tears finally spilling forth. As he wept, Harry wept. 

“I will be with you forever.” Louis kissed his lover amidst their tears, a kiss that could have birthed stars, such was its heat, could have unmoored mountains from their bonds of earth, could have nourished the desert with its abundance; but passed between their mouths, it instead bore witness to a vow that the wind carried away to the sky, a soft, forgotten thing unless the heavens had ears or the clouds understanding. 

*

Days piled into weeks, and weeks to months, and with the first frost of fall came the drums of war. Charlotte clung to the prince before he departed, begging him not to go, not to carry out the mad wishes of their father. But Louis understood the distraction of war, and the value of keeping the King’s mind off the tales of the exiled heir that had found refuge in the wild places, God on his side, the Church at his call. 

So Louis rode out to battle alone for the first time since Harry had slain the giant, and he knew at once by the angle of the wind that God did not go with him. And why should He? Louis had stolen from Him, mocked Him, defied Him, and though the kingdom bore the banner of God, the pagans could smell the heresy on them like rank clothes. Easily the King’s opponents trounced them in battle, slaying a quarter of Louis’ men and gaining a forest boundary he and Harry had won years before. Defeated and in retreat, Louis sent word to his father, asking for reinforcements. Four days he waited, encamped on the high ground above the Vienne river, and at sunrise of the fifth day the King arrived with more men. 

Louis rose to meet them, his conscience heavy, for these men too would die. God had abandoned them, and the trees here had never knelt at alters like their conquered men; no, they harbored the old gods in their wooden hearts, as did the very grass beneath his feet, the dew that climbed up Louis’ pedules and tried to soak its wet into his very bones. 

The King spoke harshly to Louis in the early morning light. “Too long it has been since you’ve seen _my_ glory, boy. I will set these Godless dogs to flame. The people will chant _my_ name again come the morrow.” 

Louis knew then that he would die. 

He ached for one more night, one more sunless turn of dark by which to remember Harry’s face, his strong hands, the heat where he burned inside. But the King had his men blow their war trumpets and soon they were riding into the river valley as the sun broke over the hillocks behind them, and Louis’ mind became consumed with parries and thrusts and blocks and blood.

When his horse fell, Louis hit the ground hard, dislodging the grip he’d fervently maintained on his shield. He had no time to reclaim it, as the foe had swarmed around them, hemmed them in from every side of the valley, a closed trap the King had brashly failed to recognize. The screams of dying men, _his men_, surrounded him, a haunting chorus of cries that layered atop each other, for no wind carried them aloft that morning; the air hung stagnant and heavy, clogged with the sounds of death, a smog of suffering. 

Louis heard his father roar and turned in time to see him struck in the side. Other blows followed, but Louis did not watch. He had no desire to mark or mourn his father’s end. 

His men were scattering now, limping off into the forests like wounded pups, and cheers were rising around him; the fight continued in Louis’ pocket of battle alone. Five men encircled him, their swords dripping with gore. Louis had always imagined dying upon a clean blade, an unsullied weapon fit for his royal heart, but God wished to deny him even this final dignity. He lunged forward, numb, tired, barely clinging to strength. 

When the first blade pierced his belly he found that its sting only heightened his own ferocity. When the second found its mark, his body overruled him and he fell to the muddy grass. The pagans spit on him between taunts, laughing at the weakness of his God, praising their own, but they didn’t kill him. They left him to languish alone atop the pagan earth, his blood watering the soil in unholy sacrifice. 

Death was a temptress, coy, flirting. Louis half wished he had learned to court women, the better to win Her favor, for She let him suffer as the sun rose higher in the sky, as the enemy regrouped beyond the littering of bodies and prepared to invade the lands Louis had once called home. When the sun appeared straight above him, Louis looked, realizing it now no longer mattered if blindness plagued him. Certain death had made him invincible. 

Horns filled his ears and he closed his eyes against their memory. The thunder of hooves rattled his seeping frame and he felt the pagan grass tremble. A breeze toyed with his sweat-slick hair, washing away the scent of opened bodies and filling his nostrils with harvest fruits and brimming rivers and fields of grain. Louis opened his mouth, tasting the air. 

The shaking earth didn’t subside, but grew closer, and soon he heard the clash of metal and the screams of battle. He wondered at this, at who had halted the pagans’ advancement when his own army had failed. The wind ruffled his soaking tunic, and then he understood. 

He taunted Death back, closed his eyes against the blazing sky, and waited, willing his blood to slow and his breathing to shallow, but in the face of such high hope his reckless heart thundered on, spewing the life from his veins. But Harry found him in time. 

Gentle hands clasped his face and he opened his eyes to find the shepherd bent above him, tears and snot dripping down his chin. Without a word Harry kissed him, and Louis forgot the pain for a moment, so healing were his lover’s lips. 

“You swore to me, Louis. You _swore_.” 

“Death won’t break my vow, shepherd boy.” Louis’ voice came out thin, a sliver of his former tone. “I will find you, always.” 

“My Prince.” Harry stroked his face, held his blood-stained hands. 

“My _King_,” Louis bestowed, a small smile haunting his face. 

“Your love,” Harry began, choking back sobs, “Has been _wonderful_ to me. It has surpassed all others. It always will.” 

“Quietly, my love, or God will hear you,” Louis chided, the blackness starting to claim his vision. He memorized Harry’s face as it faded from his view. 

“I will shout it from atop every mountain, my Prince. Forever.” Harry kissed him once more, willing the taste of Louis’ last breath to linger. 

In that that moment Louis’ body ceased responding to his commands. Though his nerve endings no longer functioned, he could feel Harry touching him, wrapping around his very soul, warm and solid and comforting. In this embrace he died. 

Louis couldn’t have known how Harry would mourn endlessly, how the young king would wear only black and often retreat to the garden alone with his harp to strum songs into the wind. He couldn’t have known how Harry would claim Charlotte and her sisters for his own, making their lives more beautiful than they’d ever dreamed could be, nor how he would end the wars, drawing up treaties instead of battle plans and demanding the Church feast on gold instead of blood. He couldn’t have known how Harry’s kindness would be sung throughout the lands, how the people would worship him, how the Church would, only a few short months after old age had claimed him, mark Harry a Saint. 

Louis couldn’t have known these things, yet he did. He knew them with certainty, just as he knew that he would find his shepherd boy again, that he would worship Harry’s lips, would hold Harry’s lithe body, would fill the channels of his need. 

For though God had chosen a Son, the devil had chosen a lover as his champion. Lucifer posed one question every time the two souls brushed against each other in new bodies, sometimes colliding, sometimes enmeshing, sometimes missing each other entirely and living out their days endlessly yearning for completion: 

“Tell me, oh jealous One, how much blood is worth an endless love?”

**Author's Note:**

> Parts 2 and 3 coming as quickly as I can ;) I'm @hazzabeeforlou on tumblr, all the love, Toni


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